


The Changeup

by lalalalalawhy



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Bisexual Male Character, Bisexuality, Canon Dialogue, First Time, M/M, Pansexual Character, Really leaning into Canada, Written between seasons 3 and 4, bisexual patrick, pansexual david
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-14 19:43:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13014828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalalalalawhy/pseuds/lalalalalawhy
Summary: On May 16, 2003, the Toronto Blue Jays scored 18 runs against the Kansas City Royals and Patrick Burton realized he was probably a little more in love with his best friend than was normal.





	1. Shutout and a New Ballgame

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cjmarlowe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cjmarlowe/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide!
> 
> Thanks to [secretsofluftnarp](http://archiveofourown.org/users/luftie) for the beta and cheerleading!

On May 16, 2003, the Toronto Blue Jays scored 18 runs against the Kansas City Royals and Patrick Burton realized he was probably a little more in love with his best friend than was normal.

While Tom Wilson, the Blue Jay’s catcher and Patrick’s favorite player, scored the first run of the game in the top of the second inning, Patrick walked into Tim Horton’s to meet up with the other guys from the high school baseball team. It was Friday night after practice, and Coach wasn’t happy with how things were shaping up for Saturday’s game. He’d kept Patrick and Josh after to talk through the other team’s lineup and pitching strategy, which meant Patrick missed showering with the other guys, which was honestly a relief.

It still meant he was showering with Josh, which wasn’t.

Patrick was the team’s catcher, and Josh was his pitcher. Josh Marshall was in many ways everything Patrick wasn’t: tall, dark, and handsome, with stringy muscles and a fastball approaching 75 miles per hour. Patrick, on the other hand, was still fairly short for sixteen, and his muscles were still on the chunky side. The two had been best friends since they’d been paired up in Little League the summer between grades two and three. They’d discovered that they lived eleven houses apart, they both loved baseball, and Patrick had a Nintendo. They’d been friends ever since.

Patrick had spent more time with Josh than with anyone else outside of his family. On the team, Patrick was Josh’s catcher, protecting him, calling pitches, and catching just about anything he threw. But more than that, Patrick would do anything for Josh. Anything.

Patrick didn’t think about that too hard as he ordered his Timbits. There were a lot of things that he didn’t think about that hard. He was pretty good at it.

He and Patrick joined the guys mid-conversation. Rodriguez, who played right field, was giving Carter, center, grief about his girlfriend, which Carter was taking like a champ.

“I’m telling you, this is different,” Carter said.

“What, you love this girl?” Rodriguez asked, throwing half a Timbit at Carter, who caught it and popped it in his mouth.

“I think so, man,” he said, unable or unwilling to hide the goofy smile spreading over his face.

“Psssshshhh, lame,” Rodriguez said, and threw a Timbit at McCoy, the first baseman, who caught it with his face.

“He’s just jealous,” Josh said, and it made Patrick smile down at his Coke.

“Yeah,” Carter said, and the conversation moved on to how much Rodriguez could bench (not as much as he claimed) and how they were going to beat the Guelph Gaels (they probably weren’t).

“How do you know?” Patrick asked Carter, quietly, as the team left the restaurant. The rest of the team was laughing at Rodriguez and McCoy roughhousing in the parking lot. Josh was about five paces ahead of Patrick, but hanging back, half waiting for him to catch up before walking to their neighborhood.

“Know what?” Carter asked.

“That you’re in love,” Patrick said. “With your girlfriend,” he clarified.

“I dunno,” said Carter, tipping his head up to at the night sky. “It’s just-” he stopped, then started again. “When she’s around, I feel happy, you know? I feel like I’d do anything to make her smile. I feel like I could go out and fight a hundred dudes if it would make her happy, you know?”

Patrick nodded, and didn’t look at Josh. “Yeah.”

“And sometimes, when we touch, and I don’t even mean like that, I just mean like holding hands, it feels like we’re the only two people in the world. Like… nothing else even matters.”

Carter sighed. “Anyway, I’ve gotta wait for my sister. She’s giving me a ride home,” Carter lived on the outskirts of town. “See you tomorrow, yeah?”

“Bright and early,” Patrick said, and half rolled his eyes at himself.

More than a thousand kilometers away, at Kauffman Stadium, Royals’ pitching was falling apart. At the top of the third inning, pitcher Chris George allowed three runs in a row. And back in the Tim Horton’s, Josh walked over to Patrick, his hands balled in his jacket pockets. He bumped Patrick’s shoulder with his own, and Patrick felt the bottom drop out of his stomach.

_Uh-oh._

“What was that about?” Josh asked.

Patrick glanced up at Josh’s face, and it was like he was seeing it for the first time, while at the same time it was the same face he’d seen nearly every day for eight years. He saw Josh’s thick brows, his kind brown eyes, and dumb boy band hair that he’d been proudly growing out all year. He saw the way Josh’s lips curved up into a smile while his brows drew together into a frown, and he saw this wisps of his carefully-cultivated mustache hair.

He could always read Josh, when he was on the mound or off. It was a catcher’s job to keep his eyes on the pitcher, to notice when he was flagging, to build him when he was faltering, to be a harsh voice of reason when he needed it.

There was no face in the world Patrick knew better. It was just the dumb face of his best friend. So why was he shaking right now?

It was the most beautiful face Patrick had ever seen. Both things could be true.

“Er, uh, it was nothing,” Patrick said, resolutely not looking at Josh’s mouth.

Josh shrugged and started walking the nine blocks to their neighborhood.

“Do you want to come over and watch the rest of the game with me?” Josh asked.

“My dad’s taping it for me,” Patrick said. “I asked him to.”

“Cool,” Josh said.

They walked in silence for five blocks, and Patrick didn’t think about Josh’s lips, or the way his pants fit him, or what it might be like to watch a baseball game with his arms around his best friend, Josh’s head pillowed on his shoulder. He thought a little about the lineup of the other team, and a little bit about the moon, and a little bit about the Blue Jay’s season so far. He thought about Ashley from Trigonometry, who was a safe bet for times like these: she was short and pale and attractive, and sometimes, when she laughed, he got the same plummeting stomach feeling he got when...

In the sixth inning, the Blue Jays scored four runs and Patrick tried reciting the batting averages of the entire Blue Jays lineup. That worked a little better.

“Hey, it’s Victoria Day on Monday,” Josh said as they approached Patrick’s house, his voice startling Patrick out of his statistical reverie. “My family is planning to head up to our cabin on the Bruce after the game. Do you want to come?”

“I’d better not,” Patrick said. “I think we have plans.” It was a lame excuse, but it was the only one he had time to come up with.

“Cool. See you tomorrow,” Josh said, and walked to his front door.

Patrick watched his friend’s back for a moment, then mentally shook himself and walked the rest of the way home.

* * *

Here is what Patrick Burton, catcher for the KCI Raiders and all around decent guy, knew about himself:

  * He liked women plenty. He liked thinking about their bodies; he liked looking at boobs; and one time, at Josh’s 15th birthday party, he played spin the bottle and got to kiss Karen Wilson on the lips. It was nice and it tasted like strawberries.
  * When he masturbated, he often began by thinking about Carmen Electra or Jennifer Lopez or the taste of Karen Wilson’s lip gloss, but sometimes, if he wasn’t paying close attention or if he was especially tired, Jennifer Lopez would begin to look a lot like Tiger Woods or Han Solo.
  * That was just a phase, though. Or, like, hero worship gone weird.
  * It was a perfectly normal thing that everybody did. Teenagers didn’t really know what they liked and so their brains just tried out a bunch of random synapses until something turned them on, right? Everybody had these thoughts, right? He’d read something like that in _Newsweek_ or something. It didn’t mean he was gay.
  * He definitely wasn’t gay. He liked women. He wanted to touch them, and he wanted them to touch him. With genitals. He wanted to fuck them, or them to fuck him, or something. He was a little vague on exactly what or how, other than touching would definitely be involved.
  * He’d never done it, obviously, but he was pretty sure what he wanted involved fucking.
  * Sometimes he dreamed about lying out on a hillside and watching clouds pass with someone, and that someone’s hand was big and warm. Or he would be racing in a speedboat on the lake, skipping over the waves and laughing as sun and water glinted off of the man standing next to him. The men in his dreams were mostly faceless, anonymous dudes with dazzling smiles and good hair, but sometimes they looked a lot like the members of the baseball team.
  * Speaking of the baseball team, he never looked at the other guys in the showers. At all.
  * Ever.
  * That would be weird.
  * But sometimes he maybe wanted to.
  * Sometimes, late at night, he’d play back what he’d seen from the corners of his eyes.
  * It was probably just a phase. Teenagers went through phases.
  * But it had been going on for a while now.
  * He wondered when it would be over.



Patrick thought about all of this while he watched the game his dad had taped. Or, he didn’t think about it, not directly, but he thought around it. He gathered all the thoughts together in his mind, one at a time, and then poked at them, gingerly, like a tooth with a cavity, trying to assess it all without really acknowledging it or making it hurt any worse than it already did.

It took until the fourth inning for him to get them all gathered, and he poked at them until about the bottom of the sixth, when the game (thank God, the game was still on) got too interesting.

He’d heard the term bisexual, sure, everybody had, but he didn’t think he knew any of them. Liking girls seemed hard enough as it was. Why make life more complicated?

He cheered as the Blue Jays scored seven runs in the eighth inning. His dad came in to watch with a beer and let him drink half.

That night, Patrick thought about Josh up on the Bruce, and thought about laying out on the dock with him, looking out at the stars and slapping at mosquitoes. It seemed life had become more complicated without him even realizing it.

He let himself picture what might happen next as he touched himself, imagining it was Josh’s hand on his cock, Josh’s lips on his, his hands in Josh’s hair as he stroked harder and _oh_ …

Patrick came harder than he ever had, so hard it made his vision go all spotty. He lay in the dark, dazed and panting. Life _had_ gotten more complicated without bothering to ask him about it.

_Dammit._

The next morning, he decided to lock that particular train of thought, the “I probably like boys” thing, away inside himself, for more thought later. For now, he would just carry on as normal, and he could figure it out in due time, he decided. Like maybe in college, when he had things more figured out. That’s what people did in college, right? Figure things out?

 


	2. Innings and Outings

Baseball season ended, and then, before Patrick knew it, he was enrolled in university. Time had a way of stretching and then compressing in on itself, sometimes. 

About half the team had gone to Western, including Josh, but Patrick decided to stay more local. He was a Guelph Gryphon, still playing catcher on the baseball team. 

About midway through his first year, Patrick made the most important discovery of his entire university career -- the study carrels on the second floor of the campus library that sat right next to the books on sociology and anthropology. More precisely, it was very near the books on sexuality. So near, in fact, he could grab a couple and bring them back to the carrel without anyone noticing.

Patrick was fascinated. He’d shied away from discussions of sexuality ever since… well, ever. Here was finally a treasure trove of information just waiting for him. 

These books had some pretty interesting stuff in them, and not just about sex (although there was plenty of that). His roommate spent a ton of time watching porn, but it never quite sat right with Patrick. Nobody seemed to be having very much fun: not the actors, not the actresses, and certainly not Patrick, whose roommate apparently couldn’t figure out how to plug in his headphones at night.

In the books, on the other hand, they were having both fun and sex, and lots of it. The books described a whole different world, waiting to be explored. He read a book on the female orgasm, two books on the male orgasm, several books on vintage pornography, and a book on the sex lives of sailors in WWII. He read an oral sex manual, interviews with the gay community in San Francisco in the 1970s, and more. 

For the first time in Patrick’s life, he was reading books outside of what was assigned in class. He’d always been a bit more of a numbers guy, but this was interesting stuff.

A few weeks into Patrick’s independent study on human sexuality, he found a book on Alfred Kinsey, the sex researcher whose theories, the book was careful to point out, though revolutionary for their time, were best used now as a useful historical framework rather than fact. 

It would have been just another interesting book if it weren’t for one thing: the book included an entire chapter on the Kinsey Scale, including a mock of a questionnaire that was based on interview questions used to score test subjects. 

Patrick read the chapter carefully and unemotionally, putting it in the locked place inside of himself, then put the book down and picked his homework back up. After doing a problem set, he took his remaining scratch graph paper and turned back to the questionnaire. 

“Here goes nothing,” he thought, and started filling it out.

_ Have you ever had sexual intercourse with a member of the same sex? _

> _  No. _

_ Would you like to have intercourse with a member of the same sex in the future? _

> _  Not really.  _ Sure, Patrick had thought about it, but no. 

_ Do your sexual fantasies feature predominantly members of the same sex or members of the opposite sex? _

> _  Opposite sex.  _ For sure. 

After completing the quiz, Patrick calculated his score. He landed at about a 0.5, not totally straight (duh,) but close enough to fake it.

He heaved a sigh of relief and closed the book, his fingers drumming on the corners. 

He looked around. There was nobody else in this section of the library. He’d come over after practice, which meant it was 8pm on a Friday night. Obviously most people had other, more important things to do. He thought about doing another problem set, but found he couldn’t concentrate. 

Patrick heaved another sigh, feeling vaguely ridiculous. He turned back to the questionnaire and started again. This time he told the truth. 

_ Have you ever had sexual intercourse with a member of the same sex? _

> _  Still no. _

_ Would you like to have intercourse with a member of the same sex in the future? _

> _  ... _

Patrick pictured Josh’s face, ridiculous facial hair and all. He thought about kissing him: remembering all the times he’d fantasized about it in the past. 

He thought about his saddest little fantasy, one that he thought about late at night after masturbating, that someday he would get married to a woman, have children, raise them well, and remain faithful to his wife. They would grow old together and be very happy for many years, but eventually she would die first. After his wife died, he thought, he would move into a retirement community and find some cute old man whose wife had also died, and they would fall in love. He would get to do it all, just a little later on. It would be great.

_ Would you like to...  _

The question stared at him.

> _ Yes.  _ Hell yes.

After that, answering the questions fully and completely was easy. Yes, he wanted to sleep with men, yes he wanted to sleep with women. His fantasies featured both men and women. Prominently. 

Patrick checked over his answers one more time, more carefully than he ever had in Calc. When he was done calculating his answers, the truth was right there on the page:

Kinsey 3. The bi-est of bisexuals. Perfect. 

_ Dammit. _

* * *

When Patrick lost his virginity, two things were true: it was with a woman, and he did it mostly to prove he could.

It was a Saturday night, and he was alone at a dive bar close to campus. It had a live band, though, and the Labatt was cheap, so it wasn’t all band. 

The keyboardist caught his eye. She wore ripped jeans and lots of eyeliner, and her naturally dark hair tied into hundreds of tiny braids that swung in time with the music. She was cute, she was cool, and she was in a band. And Patrick was sick and tired of thinking about things without doing anything about them. He decided to go for it, give it the old college try as it were, and whatever happened, happened. 

After the show, he stuck around, got her name (Katie), and offered to buy her a drink. They had a couple of beers and Patrick went in for a kiss. She leaned into it and deepened it, her tongue sliding into his mouth.

He’d kissed girls before, but this was different. Katie was eager, insistent, assertive. She lived close, she said, and invited him over to her place to continue drinking. He accepted. 

Katie cracked open a couple beers, handing one to Patrick. She leaned in almost immediately, and his beer remained where he’d set it, undrunk. Her kisses were hard and insistent, and moved down to Patrick’s neck, heating up quickly, until Patrick flinched backwards.

“Hey, uh, I’m going to need a break,” Patrick said. 

“Sure,” she said, then continued, looking at him from under her eyelashes as she sipped his beer, “We can go as far as you like tonight.”

She seemed serious. Years of locker room talk had convinced Patrick that girls wanted sex less than boys did, but years of personal experience had also taught him that boys in locker rooms were often liars. 

“Really?” Patrick asked, and Katie nodded.

“Really,” she said.

“Um,” Patrick said, and took a deep breath. “I’d like to try going down on you,” he said, the words tumbling out all at once.

“Shit yeah,” Katie said. 

“And I want you to tell me how you like it.” 

“Of course,” she said. 

“No, I’ve… I’ve never done it before.” Patrick said. “I want to know how to do it right.”

“Patrick,” she said, “by the time we’re done here, you will be qualified for a PhD in eating pussy.”

Patrick turned bright red, but found he was smiling. “Should I like, brush my teeth or anything?” he asked. 

“Nah, you’ll be the one doing the tasting,” she said, smiling. “We don’t have taste buds down there.” She paused, considering, then shuddered. “Thank Christ.”

She kissed him again, hard. “It’s cool if I get naked, right?” she asked. 

“Shit yeah,” Patrick said with a crooked smile. 

“Oh, one more thing,” Patrick said as she peeled her bra off. He took a deep breath. “I’m bisexual.”

“Really?” she asked, giving him an appraising look, then shook her head as if to clear it. “I mean, awesome. You’re still into this, right?” she asked, indicating her body and waving her hand around to capture the whole situation.

Patrick looked at her in the low light of her bedroom, which made her dark skin an even deeper color, except where it seemed to shimmer. Her braids hung in a curtain around her exposed breasts. His dick had gotten the picture and was responding appropriately.

He crossed the room slowly, watching Katie’s face with each step. He stopped when he was just within arm’s reach. 

“Yeah,” he said, letting a little breath out he didn’t realize he’d been holding. “I really am.”

* * *

After that, Patrick developed a bit of a reputation as a caring lover who was generous, appreciative, and delighted to eat pussy. Importantly, he was not interested in a relationship and didn’t get jealous or mean.

That was his reputation with the women he slept with, anyway. With the men he lived with, he got a weird reputation as a player. It made Patrick pretty uncomfortable, and he told the guys as much. After that, the comments mostly stopped, but they still waggled their eyebrows at him a lot. 

Patrick ignored it. And whenever somebody asked why he didn’t have a girlfriend, he just shrugged.

The truth was he didn’t need one to be happy and fulfilled. He had his friends, he had all the sex he could want, and he was maybe waiting for the right person to come along. 

The deeper truth, the one that Patrick barely even admitted to himself, was that he had spent so long isolating his romantic interest in anyone from any of the rest of himself that it just didn’t come naturally any more. He found sarcasm worked better in most situations, anyway. 

Further, he wasn’t out, not really, even though he was living his life as truthfully as he knew how. As soon as he was dating someone for real, he’d have to make a decision one way or the other and introduce them as his girlfriend or his boyfriend, and then either do a lot of explaining or none at all and continue living a lie. Thinking about it made Patrick tired, so he mostly… didn’t. 

* * *

It was 2005 and Patrick was home for the summer when he saw the announcement that Parliament had legalized same-sex marriage across Canada. He was sitting at the local bar with his cousin Michael when the announcement flashed across the bottom of the screen.

Patrick gasped a little as a weight lifted from his shoulders that he didn’t even know was there, and immediately coughed and sputtered as his Labatt Blue went down exactly the wrong pipe.

“You okay?” Michael asked, thumping him on the back.

Patrick, still coughing, just pointed at the TV. 

“Oh hey, gay marriage,” Michael said. “I kind of thought that was already a thing?”

“It was in Ontario,” Patrick said.

“Oh,” Michael said. “I should pay more attention. Still, I’ll drink to that!”

Patrick grinned and clinked his glass against his cousin’s. Everything was going to be all right. Eventually.

* * *

Patrick had always been good at numbers, and he discovered he was even better at spreadsheets. He began pursuing a degree in Business Management while continuing his stint as the Gryphon’s key catcher. It was hard to say which he was better at.

He was pretty good at numbers in columns, but he was a decent player, too. Decent enough that, in his third year, his coach called him in to talk about his future baseball career. 

“Son,” Coach said, and Patrick smiled a little. “You can play.”

“Thanks, Coach,” Patrick said after the pause got long enough to be awkward. 

“If you apply yourself,” Coach said, “you could take this all the way to the majors.” 

Patrick shook his head slightly in confusion. He’d never really planned on going professional, much less believed he could. “What?” he asked.

“Listen, I’m not saying you’ll get drafted right off,” Coach said. “But you could play in the Minors, do your time, and maybe get a few seasons in the Majors. Starting salary in A-level ball is more than a grand a month. It’s a decent option.”

Patrick thought about it. He loved baseball: the smell of a freshly-mown field, the rhythm of a game, the camaraderie of the team. He saw his life stretching out before him, a career playing ball, and it was appealing. 

Then he considered the reality of being in some sort of spotlight, having his personal life on display for managers, coaches, and other players. He thought about trying to go on dates like that, he thought about exposing his friends to that kind of media scrutiny. He thought about the fact that there were absolutely no openly gay players in baseball. And he thought better of it. 

“I think I’ll stick to business school, Coach,” he said. He stood up, made eye contact, and offered his hand. “Thanks all the same.”

“Well, you’ll do just fine there, son,” Coach said.

Patrick smiled tightly, and nodded, and walked out into the cool sunshine of early spring.


	3. The Changeup

Patrick graduated and held a series of low-paying office grunt jobs in Kitchener. Over the next five years he watched nearly all of his high school friends and former teammates get married, settle down, and start having kids. He was the Best Man in two of his cousins’ weddings, and attended at least a dozen more. Without the structure of school or baseball, he could feel the years start to tick past, faster and faster.

He couldn’t help but feel like life was passing him by, like it was a thing he was watching happen to other people.

He was ready for a change, which was probably why the job opening caught his eye. It was a business manager position for a small real estate firm supported by a government grant for small businesses in rural areas. The position offered a salary not much more than he was making now, but the average rent was half what he was paying now.

Plus, the look on his cousins’ faces when he told them where he would be moving would be worth it alone: Schitt’s Creek.

He'd better pack a paddle, just in case.

* * *

Despite its name, Schitt's Creek was just another town, Patrick thought as he drove his car down the main thoroughfare. It was a Friday afternoon, and he had an appointment to meet Ray Butani, the real estate agent whose office he was sharing.

Patrick walked up to the unassuming-looking house with four different signs advertising four different businesses on it. It seemed like it was the right address. He raised his fist to knock on the door when it swung open and he was greeted with a shutter click and blinding flash.

“Greetings!” a voice said. “I assume you are here for your portrait session!”

“Uh, what?” Patrick asked, blinking hard and trying to clear his vision. “No? I’m from the rural development project? I’m supposed to be meeting a Mr. Ray Butani?”

“Oh! Hello, hello! Welcome! I am Ray Butani, Schitt’s Creek’s premier real estate developer, portrait photographer, and tailor, as well as multiple other services I provide. You may call me Ray.”

He handed Patrick a sheaf of business cards, each with a different service on offer, and ushered him into the lobby of the house, which also appeared to be a living room.

“Great,” Patrick said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” He stuck out his hand for a handshake.

Ray took his hand and pumped it enthusiastically.

“I can see you won’t be needing my handshake consulting services,” he said. “You have quite a nice grip on you already! Perfect firmness, and your hands are pleasantly soft.”

“Um, thanks?” Patrick said. This wasn’t exactly the introduction he had expected. “Now, I was told you would be able to help me find housing?”

“Ah, yes!” Ray said. “For a small fee, I would be more than happy to help you peruse the listings of the local rentals and make inquiries into their appropriateness for a man of your needs and desires. Do you have a spouse or children?” He began to rifle through a filing cabinet.

“You know what?” Patrick said, “I think I’ll take it from here. Thanks so much for your help, and I’ll be back on Monday to get started.”

“Wonderful,” Ray said, and turned his attention to people coming up the driveway, hand-in-hand. “Welcome!” he cried, “Are you here for a couple’s massage or a portrait session?”

Patrick shook his head and smiled to himself, escaping out the side door. This whole experience was shaping up to be a little weird, but it was weird in a way he kind of liked. It was, well, it was charming. It would certainly do for now.

* * *

“Well, it’s a general store… but it’s also a very specific store.”

“Huh,” Patrick said. The man sitting in front of him was David Rose, new lessee of the Schitt’s Creek general store building, and he was currently having a bit of trouble describing exactly what he planned to do with it.

“And it’s also not just a store,” David said, trying to explain. Patrick still had no idea what the business actually was, but the guy’s clear enthusiasm about it was adorable.

Actually, David’s whole _thing_ was adorable. He was a little bit shy of tall dark and handsome, and he had a face that telegraphed his every emotion. In other words, he was exactly Patrick’s type. If Patrick had a type, that is. He hadn’t really thought about it too hard before, but now here he was, a guy who had a face Patrick would cross rivers for.

Was that even a metaphor people used? Patrick was getting distracted, but it was so easy to do. David’s eyebrows, his lips, his…

He was talking again.

“It’s like a place where people can come and get coffee or drinks. But it's not a coffee shop, nor is it a bar.” David was using his hands to emphasize, and Patrick was finding it hard to concentrate on anything else.

“Okay, so we’re pretty clear on what it’s not,” he said, using a hand to try and hide his smile.

“Yeah, it’s an _environment,”_ David said, using his hands to illustrate. Patrick still had no idea what David was trying to describe, but he was finding it very difficult to hide his delight. “And yes, we will be selling things, but it's more like a branded immersive experience.”

“Right,” Patrick said. “I love the buzzwords, David, but I do need to put something down here.”

“And you couldn’t use any of what I just said?” David asked, clearly wounded by Patrick’s joy.

_Dammit._

“Tell you what,” Patrick said, handing David the forms, “why don’t you take these home with you and fill them out when you have a clearer idea of what you want to do with the business.”

“Okay, um, I do have a clear idea,” David said.

Be that as it may, he didn’t quite have a convincing elevator pitch. “Oh, so you’ve settled on a name, then?” Patrick asked, knowing the answer.

David’s eyes narrowed as he tried to size Patrick up. _Good luck,_ Patrick thought.

“Okay, you’re either very impatient or extremely sure of yourself,” David said, and Patrick smiled. Either one of those impressions was fine by him.

“Threw you a bit of a changeup there, huh?” Patrick asked, no longer trying to hide his smile.

“Again, I don’t know what that means. I don’t play cricket,” David said.

Patrick nearly laughed out loud, but caught himself.

“Look, take this,” he said. “It’s my card,” he explained, trying to keep his cheeks from flushing as he justified giving David his phone number. This was still a professional interaction, he reminded himself.

“You know what? I think I’m good,” David said, but he took the card. “So thank you for this,” he said, not attempting to hide the sarcasm.

David stood and left, avoiding Ray’s very strange photoshoot. Patrick hoped he would call.

* * *

Oh, he called. Oh boy did he call. Patrick saw the flashing light on the voicemail machine in his office ( _Why did he call the office number and not my cell?_ Patrick asked himself very briefly, before remembering that his relationship with David was still entirely professional) and hit play.

“Hi David, it’s Patrick…” David’s voice played out of the machine, but then went dead for a good three seconds. Patrick could very nearly see his face writhing in embarrassment. He was calling to walk him through the business plan in more detail, it seemed, so Patrick grabbed a pen and paper to take notes, but David didn’t actually give any further details, ending the call instead with a cheerful “Ciao!”

“Call ended at 2:17 p.m.,” chirped Patrick’s voicemail system. “Next message,” it said, then went straight into the next one.

“Hi Patrick. I think… I think I called you David which, that’s not, that’s not your name,” David’s voice said through the voicemail. “You can just delete that text, um, the voicemail I left you.” Patrick smiled. “Um, just thought it might be a good idea to give you some background information about the store. It’s basically a general store, um, that will support local artists under the brand of the store, which would also be my brand-” The message ended.

Patrick looked down at his pad of paper. He’d written, “Gen store? Local artists?”

“Call ended at 2:20 p.m.,” the voicemail system said. “Next message.”

“I’m heading out,” Ray said. “Good luck listening to the rest of those.”

Patrick waved to him, and listened to the next message.

“Yeah, the text cut us off,” David was saying into the phone.

* * *

The following week, Patrick dropped by Rose Apothecary to drop off the business license. He’d picked out a frame that he thought David would like: solid and shiny, just like him.

 _What?_ Patrick thought. _Solid and shiny?_

He shook his head at himself, turned off his car, and walked into David’s store for the first time.

* * *

“This frame is too corporate for my brand,” David had said, and the phrase ran through Patrick’s head over and over again that night. It was dumb, it was silly, it was such a small thing, but it had seemed like a rejection.

Patrick sighed and dumped the undrunk half of his beer into the sink. He had to get ahold of himself.

He thought about David, and the skull-baseball shirt he’d been wearing. Patrick had been feeling homesick that day. He’d been listening to an old recording of a Blue Jays game he kept in his car before he walked into Rose Apothecary, and seeing the baseball on David’s shirt felt like the universe was waving to him, just a little. Patrick would bet that David wouldn’t know it was a baseball emblazoned on his shirt if it hit him in the face. But it didn’t matter. “You could make a home here,” it had said.

It wasn’t that Patrick was smitten, not really. It was just that the idea for Rose Apothecary was so good. It wasn’t like he felt an urge to see David again. It was just that… He was invested in the business.

Now there was an idea.

* * *

He stopped by the next day with his offer: he’d help David apply for grants, and he’d become a co-investor in the business. The success or failure of Rose Apothecary would be partially riding on his shoulders, and it was a thrill he hadn’t felt since his days behind the plate.

It hit him all at once, as he looked at David in the store, juggling cash register parts. He _was_ smitten. His goddamn heart just couldn’t keep it together. But he’d gone too far to back out now.

“I really think you have something here, David,” he said. “You just need some help. You need a lot of-”

“Okay,” David cut him off, but he agreed to accept Patrick’s offer of investment.

There was a tiny problem. Patrick knew that personal relationships in professional environments were generally a bad idea, especially if one party hadn’t exactly told the other one that there was a strong interest in, you know, having a personal relationship.

_Dammit._

He should tell David that he had feelings for him, in case it would impact his decision about the investment opportunity. He absolutely should not tell David that he had feelings for him, for exactly the same reason.

“In the interest of us working together,” Patrick said, steeling himself, “I did want to come clean about something.” His stomach churned.

He tried, he really did. But in the end, he balked, his eyes finding the shiny, solid frame he’d gotten for David.

“I actually picked out that frame.”

“I see,” David said. “So, thank you, for making it very clear that I will be making the creative decisions for the store. And I guess you can handle all the business stuff.”

“I’m very comfortable with that,” Patrick said, maybe a little too quickly.

“And you do know that if the grant money doesn’t come through, I won’t-” David began, but Patrick cut him off.  

“Oh, I’m gonna get the money,” Patrick said. After all, he and David were now business partners, and David would be stuck with him, corporate or not.

* * *

“Should this be refrigerated?” Patrick asked, picking up a bottle of what was labeled “body milk.”

“No,” David said from the other end of the store, with a small hand-wave. “Just catalog them.”

“Can I try one?” Patrick asked.

“Um, I don’t think we have a tester yet,” David said. His attention was on the array of teas they’d picked up from the wacky farmer’s greenhouse that morning. “Sure, open it, but make sure you set it aside.”

Patrick brought the bottle of body milk to his lips just as David turned around.

“Oh my _God_ what are you doing?” David yelled.

“Sampling… the body milk?” Patrick said.

“Oh my God,” David sighed, rolling his eyes to the heavens. “Anyone with a anyone with a fibre of common sense would know that it’s not actually milk!”

“It says milk right here on the bottle,” Patrick said, putting it down.

David made an exasperated sound and crossed the room. He opened the bottle and grabbed a sterling silver pump from one of the other boxes, screwing it on in one fell swoop.

“Hand,” he said, making a beckoning motion with his fingers. Patrick placed his hand in David’s. It was the first time they’d ever touched since they shook hands at their first meeting. It had been just a few weeks prior, but it seemed like a lifetime ago.

David squirted some of the body milk onto Patrick’s hand and began rubbing it in vigorously.

“It’s _milk,_ ” he said, massaging Patrick’s hand, “for your _body_. Hence, body milk. Other hand,” he commanded, making the same beckoning motion as before.

Patrick, complied, clearing his throat and tried to get his heart to slow down just a little bit.

“Don’t you think the label could be a _little_ clearer?” he asked.

“No!” David said. “Nobody else will ever think that.”

* * *

Patrick tried, several more times, to tell David how he felt. He tried to have David come over to his house when the hotel had a lice scare, but he resisted. He tried to think of things they could do together outside of the store, but everything sounded too forced, too contrived.

He wanted to go on a date with David, but more than that, he wanted to be close to him. Their hands sometimes brushed when they unpacked shipments, and every single time it sent a thrill right up Patrick’s arm and straight to his heart.

Patrick found himself reaching out for David when they were near each other, sometimes subconsciously. It had gotten obvious, enough that David sometimes gave him a sarcastic, “I'm sorry, am I in your way?”

He'd never really had a problem telling people how he felt about them before, but that was different. It hadn't felt like this with anyone else. This was David, and, well, David mattered. This mattered.

It wasn't just about his investment in the store, though that was part of it. Truth was, he was in too deep for this to just be a casual, “Hey, I think we have something here and I hope you feel the same way; do you want to go on a date?” He had thought about introducing David to his mother, who loved sweaters, and his father, who would think he was hilarious. He thought about introducing him to his cousin Michael, who would ask him about rural economics. He had thought about how his hand felt when David was rubbing lotion into it, and he imagined feeling that way every day. He looked forward to telling his family that he was dating David, which was a far cry from how he'd felt about, well, anyone else.

It was slow torture to keep his feelings about David to himself, but it would be worse to tell him only to lose him. At least he had a ton of practice at keeping romantic feelings to himself, so keeping secrets was certainly easier. 

Patrick’s morning runs had taken on a familiar route. He ran the two miles from his house to the center of town, then around Town Hall, past Rose Apothecary just to check on it, and back to his place. It was a good five mile route, and he thought about bursting into the store and laying his heart bare every morning, but David was never there earlier than 10 a.m.

Patrick got home every day, showered, worked at Ray’s until about 3, and then headed over to the store every afternoon, where he met David and again, almost told him how he felt.

He could never quite get the words out.

* * *

People loved Rose Apothecary, just like he knew they would. It was impossible not to love something like that.

The store’s “soft open” was a total success, even if about a hundred more people came than David had anticipated.

“Well, this was a success,” David said, flipping the sign from Open to Closed.

“I would say so, yeah,” Patrick said. “Although, you know, we’d be twenty-five percent richer if we had just done a hard launch.” He shrugged, half smiling, to show he wasn’t serious. “But hey, I’m just the numbers guy.”

“Uh, but had we not done the soft launch,” David said in his slightly condescending voice, as though he were explaining it to a child, “we wouldn’t have lured all those people.”

“The best thing is that we never have to talk about it again because we’re officially open,” Patrick said.

“That is true,” David said with a smile.

“Congratulations, man,” Patrick said, and held out his arms for a hug.

“Congratulations to you,” David said, stepping into the hug.

The hug went on for a normal period of time, and then it went on for too long, and then it started to get a little weird, but Patrick didn’t want to let go. He tried to telegraph all his feelings, everything he’d never said, into his embrace. It wasn’t going to work, he wasn't telepathic, and David wasn’t going to look him in the eyes and say “Yes, I want this too,” but he couldn’t help but hope.

He would say something, he would. Patrick took a deep breath and...

The lights flickered. Patrick had installed them the night before, after David had left, but he wasn’t an electrician.

“I can fix that,” he said, letting go of David. He actually wasn’t sure he could fix that, but he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to try.

* * *

“Oh, can I get a gift receipt for that? It’s for an anniversary.”

Rose Apothecary had been open for a few weeks, and business had settled into a comfortable pace. Patrick still hadn't wound up the courage to tell David how he felt, but other than that, things were going well.

“Oh, isn't that thoughtful,” David said, his voice more sarcastic than it usually was with customers. “I wish everyone remembered special days like that, but alas, that’s not what this world is anymore.”  
  
“I’ll just take that gift receipt,” the customer said.

“You’re a good person,” David called after him.

“Is everything okay?” Patrick asked him.

“Yeah, it’s fine,” David said.

Things were quiet for the exact amount of time it took Patrick to realize David was lying. Things were not fine.

“Here’s a question,” David said into the quiet store. “Has your family ever forgotten your birthday? Like, your parents and your sister, collectively, as a whole?”.  
  
“That would be a no,” Patrick said. “No, we’ve always had some kind of party.” Patrick smiled, remembering old birthday parties with his cousins. David was not excited about his reminiscences, and seemed to be getting more uncomfortable by the second.

“I’m kinda piecing together that it might be your birthday,” Patrick said.

“Yes, it is,” David said.

“Happy birthday!” Patrick said. “How old are we?”  
  
David shot him a _look_ that made him change the subject.

“Do you have any plans for today, or…?” he asked.

“I plan on popping a pill, crying a bit, and falling asleep early. So just a regular weeknight.”

“That sounds like fun.”

“It is.”

Patrick saw an opportunity and took it. He'd take Patrick out to Cafe Tropical, the local hot spot. Well, the local only-spot. They'd tease each other over ridiculous food and he'd finally be able to tell David how he felt.

It was a date.

* * *

It was not a date.

Patrick stood in the bathroom with his hands on the sink, kicking himself for assuming David would get that it was a date. Stevie had shown up and, as much as he loved having Stevie in his corner when it came to teasing David, her presence meant that this was not a date.

 _Get it together,_ Patrick told his reflection. _David is still out there, and you need to make sure he has a good birthday, date or no._

He steeled himself and walked back out to join Stevie and David. 

They had found his gift. It was on the table. This could not be going any worse. 

“Open it, open it,” Stevie was chanting, and Patrick began to wonder if he'd somehow wandered into a mortifying nightmare. “It's nothing,” he said, “you're going to be so underwhelmed-” His heart was pounding out of his chest.

But then David opened it, and his face relaxed into a tender, grateful smile. He blinked a few times, then looked Patrick straight in the eyes. 

“What is it?” Stevie asked. 

David just looked at him, his face softening. 

“Oh, it’s just the receipt from our first sale at the store,” Patrick said, blood rushing in his ears.

“This is not nothing,” David said, and Patrick’s heart felt like it was blooming with happiness. He took a breath to say something, only to be interrupted by a plate of mozzarella sticks. 

“I overheard someone wanted mozzarella sticks for their birthday,” Twyla said, setting the mozzarella sticks down with a flourish. “Pretty sure I scraped off all the freezer burn.” 

“Wow, look at those…” Patrick said. He was pretty sure he hadn’t actually ordered them, but he wasn’t really sure about anything any more.

“You guys need anything else?” Twyla asked as she removed her apron. “’Cause I’m heading out, so…”

“You know what? I have to go too. I totally forgot-” Stevie said, grabbing her purse and bustling Patrick out of the booth. 

He blinked and both Twyla and Stevie had gone. It was just him and David, eating terrible mozzarella sticks and laughing. He felt a warmth flooding through him, like the feeling of home. 

He still hadn't told David how he felt, but for now that didn't matter. 

* * *

“Well, that was a fun night,” David said.

They were sitting in Patrick’s car, idling outside the motel. Patrick had driven David the short distance back to the motel, which was a mistake. He was sure that he could hear his heart beating the entire way.

Patrick couldn't let David leave without telling him how he felt, but he couldn't think of anything that would make him stay. He gripped the steering wheel and said the first thing that came into his head. Luckily, it was the truth.

“I’m really glad I decided to invest in your business, David,” Patrick said.

“That is a really lovely thing to say,” David replied, sincerely.

“ ‘And I’m so glad you did, Patrick, because you’ve really turned it into the success that it is,’ ” Patrick said, putting words in David’s mouth.

“Hm! A bold claim,” David said.

Patrick realized David’s gaze had focused on his mouth, and his heart skipped a beat or eight. Patrick was momentarily petrified, unable to move or even think.

David leaned in, slightly, toward Patrick, and everything in his body rushed to meet him, and then stopped, again unsure. _What if…_

But then David closed the distance and suddenly his lips were on David’s and _oh._

David raised a hand to Patrick’s cheek, and he felt safe and warm and happy. In the past, his first kisses had felt exciting, daring, stomach-dropping. They were thrilling, and this was different. His heart actually slowed down its thumping.

Patrick leaned into the kiss, opening to it, feeling a heat he hadn't felt in years curling in his belly. But he was cautious, tentative, and afraid of wanting too much too fast.

David broke the kiss, sitting back in his seat. Patrick stared at him for a few moments, just breathing, and then said, “Thank you.”

“For what?” David asked, gently

“I’ve never done that before… with a guy,” he said.  
  
David looked at him, a little confused, as if he was wondering if he'd crossed a line. “Okay…” he said.  
  
“Yeah,” Patrick said, taking a shaky breath. “And I was getting a little scared that I was going to let you leave here without us having done that.” If he'd missed his chance tonight, he wasn't sure he'd ever build up the nerve to do it again. “So, um, thank you. For making that happen for us.”

“Well,” David said with a small smile. “Fortunately, I am a very generous person.”

Patrick laughed. “Can we talk tomorrow?”

“We can talk whenever you like,” David said, “just preferably not before 10 a.m. because I am not a morning person.”

Patrick knew. If David had been a morning person, they probably would have had a chat weeks ago with Patrick, sweaty and exhausted, barging into the store.

This was probably better.

“Goodnight, David,” he said.

“Goodnight, Patrick,” David said with a small smile that made Patrick's heart feel like it was about to burst out of his chest.


	4. Home Run

“Oh my God, your _ass_!” David exclaimed from the bed, one shoe dangling from his finger tips.

Patrick hadn’t even finished taking off his pants, and he hastily pulled them back up as he straightened up.

“What? What’s wrong?” he asked, glancing back and forth between David and his own backside.

“Ohhh. Oh ho ho ho ho,” David said, shaking his head and smiling that half smile that drove Patrick crazy. He stood up and began to cross the room toward Patrick. “Honey, nothing. There is nothing wrong with it.”

David gently placed his hands on top of Patrick’s, which were still holding his waistband closed, and coaxed them to relax. He gently dropped pulled Patrick’s pants down below his hips and began chuckling again.

“Look at it! It’s magnificent!”

Patrick turned bright red, but smiled nervously back at David.

“Now, there’s clearly something deeply wrong with your mid-rise jeans if they’ve been able to hide this from me the whole time,” David said, gently swiveling Patrick’s hips back and forth to get a better look at Patrick’s boxer briefs. Or, quite possibly, his ass.

“Do you work out?” David asked.

“Uh, yeah, actually,” Patrick said. “I played baseball in college. Catcher.” He braced himself for the joke.

“Oh,” David said. “A lot of glute work in that?” he asked, narrowing his eyes in confusion.

“Are you… making a pitcher/catcher joke?” Patrick asked.

“No!” David said, affronted. “First of all, that would be incredibly crass of me, and second, I am making a statement about how I don’t know sports things.” He returned to the bed and began to pull off his other shoe.

“Oh!” Patrick said, and smiled. “I kinda figured. You don’t seem to be the most sporty guy.”

“Hey,” David said, his mouth a thin line. “You knew what you were getting into, and I am prepared to do this fully clothed if I have to.”

“No, um, no, um,” Patrick said, his mind stuttering out.

David grinned at him. “Naked it is,” he said, and continued undressing.

Patrick grinned back at his boyfriend. This was going to be fun.


End file.
